He may be a budding doorman, but he's out of uniform. (Flickr photo by Photo-Fenix)

It’s just about the next best thing in Manhattan to having a chauffeured limousine always at your disposal. That would be living in a doorman building.

Door personnel and concierges obviously do like to get paid for their work, and that means you’ll fork over plenty in common charges or maintenance fees to live in a doorman building. In fact, the cost of all labor normally is the biggest budgetary item in such a building.

But the conveniences are manifold; I’m sure that I don’t have to enumerate them for you.

116 Pinehurst Ave., #F53, co-op, 1,094 square feet, two bedrooms, maintenance of $1,138.36 and assessment of $142.74 monthly. Minimum bid: $620,000, a $60,000 reduction. Did not sell for second time and will be assigned to a broker.

204-206 W. 10th St., Apt. 3, co-op, 345 square feet, one bedroom, $634 maintenance per month. Minimum: $325,000. Did not sell and will go on the block one more time at a date to be set.

Bidders will have the opportunity on July 29 to win an apartment at the city’s estate auction of five co-ops and a condo ranging from the Financial District all the way up to Washington Heights.

Manhattan Public Administrator Ethel J. Griffin will seek to dispose of the properties, which can be inspected July 13, 15, 19 and 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day.

Two of the properties failed to sell at the last auction, and had the amount of their minimum bids cut, so this is your second chance. (Should they go unsold this time, the apartment will be turned over to a real estate broker to market.) They are: Continue reading →

You already know that the IRS is drooling over the impending income tax deadline. You’re not alone.

This is the time of year when homebuyers are digging through that shoebox with all their receipts, hoping for a refund, dreading the possibility of draining their savings and . . . postponing their search for a new place to live.

Although the weather may be fine and open houses scheduled in seasonally elevated numbers, taxes and their impact in “normal” times tend to sap the resources, energy and motivation of buyers. (Of course, this is hardly a normal year.) The nascent vigor of the housing market follows.